Tag Archives: Featured

Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam and chairman Urs Rohner (Keystone) When Tidjane Thiam arrived at the helm of Credit Suisse in the summer of 2015, he was a hero. Plucked from the same role at UK insurer Prudential, where he had doubled the share price in six years, he had big plans to shrink the Swiss group’s investment bank, slash costs, raise fresh capital and expand in Asia. He was one of four high-flying financiers parachuted in to run four of Europe’s biggest...

Bitcoin – An Exceptional Asset When I first heard about Bitcoin (BTC) in May 2011, it was trading at 8 US dollars. Today, more than eight years later, BTC trades at around 8,000 dollars. A thousandfold increase! An investment of 1,000 dollars at the time would have resulted in a gain of more than a million  –  a dream result. However, even an exceptional asset such as Bitcoin has its ups and downs – inter alia in terms of its seasonal patterns. And an exceptional...

  True Money Supply Growth Rebounds in September In August 2019 year-on-year growth of the broad true US money supply (TMS-2) fell to a fresh 12-year low of 1.87%. The 12-month moving average of the growth rate hit a new low for the move as well. The main driver of the slowdown in money supply growth over the past year was the Fed’s decision to decrease its holdings of MBS and treasuries purchased in previous “QE” operations. This was partly offset by bank credit...

Some cracks have appeared in the market’s risk-on sentiment We continue to believe that recent developments take some pressure off the Fed to cut rates again this month Our base case for a Brexit delay has been strengthened; UK reported weak labor market data The situation is Turkey continues to develop negatively for asset prices; trade data out of China once again showed the impact of the trade war and the resulting global slowdown RBA minutes were released; Japan...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.16% to 1.0977 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 15(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Ideas that a Brexit deal may be close is helping to firm sterling, while soft Chinese PPI offset the spike in food prices to show the weakness of the world’s second-largest economy. Minutes from the meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this month kept a door open to a...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) or officially named “Producer and Import Price Index” describes the changes in prices for producers and importers. For us it is interesting because it is used in the formula for the Real Effective Exchange Rate. When producers and importers profit on lower price changes when compared to other countries, then the Swiss Franc reduces its overvaluation. The Swiss PPI values of -6% in 2015 (see below), compared to -3% in Europe or -1% in...

USD/CHF repeatedly fails to cross 0.9985/90 area. A two-month-old rising trend-line, 100-day EMA grabs sellers’ attention. Repeated failures to rise past-0.9985/90 resistance-area drags USD/CHF to 0.9965 by the press time of early Tuesday. The pair now witnesses pullback towards the two-month-old rising trend-line, at 0.9930, a break of which could further drag the quote to a 100-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) level of 0.9910. Though, pair’s declines beneath...

Continued with its struggle to extend the momentum beyond 200-DMA. Bears eye a decisive break below the ascending trend-channel support. Bulls are likely to await a sustained strength above the key parity mark. The USD/CHF pair failed to capitalize on last week’s attempted rebound from a support marked by the lower end of a two-month-old ascending trend-channel and met with some fresh supply on Monday. The pair’s repeated failed attempts to extend the momentum...

Swiss Federal Railways is among the companies whose pre-1990s work practices are being questioned in relation to asbestos deaths. Labour unions are demanding a probe of companies’ pre-1990 working conditions in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino, in connection with recent asbestos-linked deaths. They are targeting particularly Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss accident insurance fund SUVA. There is concern in Ticino over several recent deaths of former employees...

© Katarzyna Bialasiewicz | Dreamstime.com In Switzerland, some married couples pay more tax than unmarried ones, something referred to as the marriage tax penalty. The issue has been doing the rounds of the halls of Switzerland’s government for around 30 years. On 28 February 2016, a vote to change the current system was narrowly rejected by 50.8% of voters. Then in April 2019, the result of this referendum was reversed by the Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s highest...